Chapter One: The Mute Girl

  After surviving the danger of the pagoda tree forest that night, I suddenly understood what it means to have a short life. People don't know when they will die unexpectedly, and many things can no longer be done at that time. For me now, isn't the most important thing finding my sister and reuniting with her? So I decided to go find my sister first, which is the top priority. It's been almost a year since I left home last year, and the original purpose of leaving home was to find my sister, but what I did in the past year has nothing to do with finding my sister.

  After coming down from the mountain and returning to Guigang, I walked for more than three hours, asked people and found the hospital. The beastly little brother was still in the hospital, but his foot had recovered a lot after so many days, and he had changed from a wheelchair to crutches. When the beastly little brother saw me, he kept asking where I had been doing bad things these few days. I definitely wouldn't tell him about my experiences over the past few days, but jokingly asked him to give me 100 yuan and I would tell him. The beastly little brother picked up his crutches and wanted to hit me.

  My money was taken away by that woman on the mountain, so I went to the hospital to borrow bus fare from Beast Little Brother to go home. After all, in Guigang, I only know him. Although we haven't known each other for long, we've been through life and death together. Beast Little Brother took out 10 yuan from his shoe sole and gave it to me, and I went home by bus that day.

  After surviving the danger of the pagoda tree forest that night, I went to sweep my grandfather's, grandmother's and mother's tombs. Although it wasn't Qingming Festival yet, it was close enough, so a few days in advance didn't matter. Having narrowly escaped death, I should offer incense to my ancestors, but the one I should thank the most is Tongtong; without her, I wouldn't even know how many times I had died.

  My grandparents' graves are at the foot of a mountain, about two or three kilometers away from the village. Early in the morning, I borrowed a chicken from my aunt and some firecrackers and candles, and then set off. After arriving at the grave, I lit incense and candles, burned paper money, and fired firecrackers. Finally, I said to my mother's grave that I was going to Hunan to find my sister and hoped to bring her back home for a reunion. I hope Mom doesn't worry about us down there.

  After returning from sweeping the tomb, I started preparing for my trip to Hunan. I knew that Hunan is a province as large as Guangxi, and Yongzhou is a city as big as Guigang. To find someone in such a vast place would definitely require money; without it, every step would be difficult - what should I do?

  Thief!

  I used to hear my uncle say that the brother of Chen Jiutun, the village chief of the neighboring village, was an official in Nanning, so Chen Jiutun's family was the only one in several nearby villages to build a small Western-style house. To be honest, only his family was worth stealing from; in those days, which rural household wasn't poor and empty? Even if you opened the door for thieves, they wouldn't be able to steal anything valuable, let alone cash.

  Before stealing something, you must investigate and understand the situation, such as whether there are dogs, whether the owner is at home, what time they usually leave and return, all of which are very important.

  In the late afternoon, when I went to the neighboring village to explore and investigate, it was an inauspicious start! Halfway through, I unexpectedly encountered a funeral procession. This funeral procession was very strange, there were no gongs or drums, no firecrackers, nor any crying relatives, only four people carrying a black coffin, hastily heading into the mountains, at this time they were only about 50 meters away from me.

  I know that such a funeral procession only occurs in three situations: one is an elderly person without descendants, this kind of elderly person does not need to have a funeral after death, just needs to be put into a coffin by relatives and carried away for burial. The second is young people who commit suicide, as well as children who die prematurely, all are hastily buried, the difference being that children generally use a mat wrapped around them or nailed in a wooden box, they do not qualify to enter a coffin.

  Seeing this black coffin, I thought of Chen Dapao. After all, he was also from this village. The police should have brought out his body by now. I wonder if it's Chen Dapao in the coffin?

  I stepped aside to the vegetable field to give way to the funeral procession, and a village woman was picking vegetables in the nearby field. She beckoned me over, and after I walked over, I found out it was my uncle's wife's cousin. My uncle's wife has a cousin who married into the neighboring village and often comes to visit, so she recognized me, but this year's changes were too great, and she couldn't recognize me at once. I asked her what she wanted me to come over for, and she said it was nothing, just telling me not to look at that (the funeral procession), which is very unlucky.

  She asked me again whose son I was in the neighboring village, and I said I'm the son of Jumping River! Your cousin's husband's sister's son, don't you recognize me? She was shocked and said that I had grown so tall, she couldn't recognize me at all, no wonder I looked so familiar. Then she asked me to help her pull out the radishes. There were two plots in the field, one of which already had several radishes planted. I asked her what she needed to pull out so many radishes for!

  My aunt's sister said that during the Qingming Festival, when sweeping the ancestral tombs, they would use food from the public tomb (the public tomb refers to the ancestors' tombs). There are over a dozen public tombs in the village, and it takes two or three days to finish sweeping them all. Each family sends one person. After returning from sweeping the tombs, they need to eat at the ancestral hall. Over the course of three days, they would slaughter a whole pig, and even if it's just radish and vegetables, they would prepare several baskets.

  My aunt's sister asked me where I had been for so long, and I said I went to work. I'm working with a cousin in Wuzhou to repair roads! My aunt's sister heard this and chuckled, saying that now that you're grown up and making money, it won't be long before you can get married and things like that.

  While pulling the radish, I changed the subject to the funeral procession we saw earlier and asked my aunt's sister-in-law who died in your village? Why wasn't there even a single mourner.

  The elder sister-in-law's younger sister lowered her voice and said, "Chen Baoguo, do you know?" I said I didn't know. She threw the radish in her hand into the frame and asked me, "Chen Dapao, shouldn't you know?"

  I knew it! That very promiscuous one, and the person who wore the same pants as my uncle.

  His aunt's sister lowered her voice and said that Chen Dapao had already died, had been missing for several months, and a few days ago the police found him in a cave, carried out a skeleton, saying that this skeleton was Chen Dapao.

  I said this thing, I know in my heart that Chen Dapao turned into a white bone or did I do it? However, on the face, I still have to pretend to be very surprised and curious, asking if the person in this black coffin is Chen Dapao, then who is Chen Baoguang?

  The elder sister of the wife's sister said that the person in the coffin was Chen Baoguo, Chen Baoguo was the father of Chen Dapao. After Chen Dapao went missing for several months, Chen Baoguo's body became weaker and weaker. When he learned that his son had been found to be a pile of white bones, he fainted on the spot. After waking up, he couldn't get out of bed or speak anymore. He died just a few days later this morning.

  The eldest aunt's sister bent down and pulled out a radish as thick as a thigh from the ground, then said: "But the most pitiful is still that little girl adopted by his family, who is mute and cannot speak. Everyone calls her Little Mute Sister. No one knows where Little Mute Sister was adopted from, nor does anyone know where her biological parents are from. It's only known that Chen Dapao picked her up on the side of the road. Now Little Mute Sister has no one to care for her, poor thing!

  I had long heard that Chen Da Pao had a four-year-old daughter, and I always thought she was his own flesh and blood. The last time I destroyed his corpse, I planned to help raise the poor girl. Now I know she's just an adopted child. This makes the little girl even more pitiful - before, there were people to care for her, but now at just four years old, she's left all alone in the house. If this little girl were a normal person, perhaps some villager would adopt her, but unfortunately, she's mute. In an era where boys are valued over girls, who would want to raise a mute little girl? Even if someone wanted to take care of her, it would be for her to serve as the family's labor force in a few years, just like how I was treated by my uncle from the age of seven - forced to do all sorts of chores like planting vegetables, weeding, washing clothes, cooking meals, and herding cattle. The hardships of those days are still unforgettable. I remember being woken up before dawn by my uncle, carrying a hoe and crying as I walked to the fields to weed, while children of the same age in the village were playing with mud and slingshots!

  A four-year-old mute girl was abandoned by her parents, and the people who raised her all passed away. At just four years old, she's had such a miserable life. I decided to go to the village to take a look at her. I asked my aunt about her cousin, what this little mute girl's name is, and my aunt said it was Chen Jianqi, a name given by Village Chief Chen Jiutong.

  After pulling out the radishes, it was already dark. I helped my aunt's sister-in-law and her cousin pick up two crates of radishes and take them back to their village. Then I asked for directions and arrived at Chen Dapao's house.

  This is the most dilapidated house in the whole village, I really can't understand why Chen Dapao didn't build a new house even though he had won a lot of money before. The inside of the house is pitch black, it looks exactly like a haunted house, and there are many wax paper offerings at the door, which should have been burned when Chen Baoguo died this morning.

  Although I know this...

  The house seemed quiet, but I still knocked on the door symbolically and asked if anyone was home. But there must be no one. I walked in and saw a little girl sitting on the doorstep wiping away tears, but couldn't hear any crying sound, this must be that little mute sister! She saw me and was probably scared, got up and ran into the dark house.

  I didn't go in, but called her from the door. Xiao Duan Mei, come out! Brother will take you to buy candies. I called several times, but she didn't come out. Then I changed my tone and called several more times, "Xiao Jian Qi", still no response from her.

  Koizumi didn't come out, I didn't enter the house. Although someone had just died in this house, I'm not afraid of ghosts anymore. The reason I didn't go in was because it was too dark and I didn't have a flashlight, I was afraid of being misunderstood as a human trafficker.

  Isn't a little girl afraid in such a dark and empty house? This made me somewhat worried, so I hurried to my aunt's sister's house to borrow a flashlight and came back, pushing open the slightly ajar door of the hall and entering the house.

  Chen Dapao's house has two rooms and a hall, but I've searched everywhere and can't find Xiaojianzi. I even went up to the attic, still couldn't find her. There's no food on the table in the hall either. Chen Baoguo has been ill for so long, who usually cooks for this family? What does this little girl usually eat, did she eat today?

  I pulled the hall switch cord, but the light didn't turn on. Maybe the power was cut off after Chen Da Pao disappeared. I had no choice but to find a candle and light it. Sitting in the living room, there was a musty smell. Suddenly, I heard a coughing sound coming from the bedroom. I rushed in immediately and found that the coughing sound was coming from under the bed. I walked over to the bedside, squatted down, and shone my flashlight underneath. I discovered that Ah-Miao Xiao Jian-Qi was hiding under there with a snakeskin bag covering herself, still coughing nonstop. When she saw my flashlight shining in, she looked extremely frightened.

  I whispered to ask her if she was hungry, and my brother would take her to buy sugar to eat, but she didn't respond to me. I stretched out one hand to grab her leg and pulled it out, she struggled non-stop, after finally pulling her out from under the bed and picking her up, just as I turned around, an old man suddenly stood in front of me, scaring me half to death.